To Avoid Delay, Airbus Drops Lithium-Ion Batteries

When it comes to the volatile new lithium-ion battery technology, Boeing and Airbus are heading in different directions.

Faced with the potential of a lengthy investigation into what caused batteries on two Boeing 787 jets to ignite or emit smoke last month, Airbus said Friday that it had dropped plans to use the technology on its forthcoming wide-body jet, the A350-XWB, to avoid possible delays in producing the planes. But Boeing, which has much more at stake, said later in the day that it would stick with the batteries, and the company is working with regulators to reduce risks even if the cause of the hazards is not clearly found.

All 50 of the 787s delivered so far were grounded in mid-January. And even though the problems have embarrassed Boeing and could cost it hundreds of millions of dollars, the company said Friday, “There’s nothing we’ve learned in the investigations that would lead us to a different decision regarding lithium-ion batteries.”

To some extent, Boeing’s bravado reflects a sense among battery experts that they have narrowed down the ways that the batteries, made by a Japanese company, GS Yuasa, could fail. That then increases the chances that a handful of changes may eventually provide enough assurance that the batteries would be safe to use.

Airbus was planning on a more limited use of the lithium-ion batteries than Boeing, and by switching to the more traditional nickel-cadmium batteries, the company can make the necessary changes as it is building the planes. Boeing, on the other hand, has a strong motivation to stick with the lithium-ion batteries in hopes that a solution will emerge.

Under flight safety regulations, industry and government officials said, Boeing might not have to go through as extensive — and time-consuming — an approval process if it redesigned the lithium-ion batteries as it would if it switched to the conventional batteries.

Even though the behavior of the more traditional batteries is better understood, they have not yet been certified for use in the 787s, and the batteries and related parts of the plane’s electrical system would have to be created and tested from scratch. Under the safety directive grounding the planes, Boeing might have a more straightforward path to get them flying again if it could persuade the Federal Aviation Administration that redesigning the lithium-ion batteries would work.

Federal and industry officials said Boeing would probably have to spread the eight cells in the batteries farther apart — or increase the insulation between them — to keep a failure in one cell from cascading to the others in the “thermal runaway” that led to the smoke and fire. Battery experts are also looking into whether vibrations in flight could have added to the risks of unwanted contact between the cells. And Boeing would undoubtedly have to wall off the battery within a sturdier metal container and make it easier to vent any hazardous materials outside the plane.

Aviation experts said the examination of such changes reflected what could end up being a difficult calculation for safety regulators: Will there be a way to ensure the safety of the batteries if they cannot tell for certain what set off the problems on the two planes?

Until now, most of the public statements by regulators have focused on the need to pin down the cause of the battery problems. But investigators, now weeks into their work, have been able to find only limited clues in the charred remains of the two batteries.

As a result, government and outside experts, working closely with Boeing engineers, have been studying the research on lithium-ion batteries carried out since Boeing won approval for its batteries in 2007 and, in essence, trying to come up with a safer design.

Government and industry officials said Friday that it was still too early to know if Boeing could devise enough changes to satisfy regulators and the flying public.

Photo

Airbus has told customers of its A350 that it would revert to a conventional battery, made of nickel-cadmium, rather than lithium-ion batteries.Credit
P. Pigeyre/Airbus, via European Pressphoto Agency

Airbus said it started informing airline customers on Thursday that it would not move ahead with an original plan to use the lithium-ion batteries on its A350s.

“Airbus considers this to be the most appropriate way forward in the interest of program execution and reliability,” said Marcella Muratore, an Airbus spokeswoman.

Airbus completed the assembly of its first test version of the A350 late last year and initial ground tests of that plane using the lithium-ion batteries had already begun at its factory in Toulouse, France.

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“Airbus is at a point where they have to make a decision,” said Scott Hamilton, the managing director at the Leeham Company, an aviation consulting firm in Issaquah, Wash. “Obviously, they decided to take the safer course to stay on schedule. They could always go back to lithium-ion if the 787 problems are sorted out.”

“But if Boeing went back to the older batteries, they might have to recertify the entire electrical system,” Mr. Hamilton said. “So it’s not in Boeing’s interest to do that.”

In this case, Airbus is also benefiting from being several years behind Boeing in developing the new generation of fuel-efficient planes, Mr. Hamilton said. He said Airbus had more flexibility since the A350s, which will compete with the 787s and Boeing 777s, have not yet been certified to fly by regulators.

Airbus has booked 617 orders for the A350 from 35 airline customers, while Boeing has about 800 more orders for the 787.

Ms. Muratore, the Airbus spokeswoman, said the company remained confident that the lithium-ion battery system that it had been developing with its French supplier, Saft, was “robust and safe,” and added that Airbus still planned to use lithium-ion batteries on the A350s it will use for flight tests scheduled to begin this summer.

The decision to revert to nickel-cadmium batteries, she said, was made purely to avoid delaying the first deliveries of the A350.

Battery makers have promoted lithium-ion batteries as being significantly lighter and faster to recharge than nickel-cadmium batteries.

Promotional materials from both GS Yuasa and Saft have also described the technology as requiring significantly less maintenance than conventional batteries, reducing operating costs for airlines.

Battery experts say that while lithium-ion batteries weigh 30 percent to 40 percent less than conventional batteries, their contribution to the overall weight of a jetliner is minimal: the empty weight of a Boeing 787, for example, is about 242,000 pounds; its two lithium-ion batteries weigh 63 pounds each.

Analysts said the cost to Airbus of making the switch was likely to be minimal.

“This seems like the thoroughly sensible thing to do,” said Nick Cunningham, an aerospace industry analyst at Agency Partners in London.

Correction: February 15, 2013

An earlier version of this article mischaracterized incidents in January involving lithium-ion batteries in Boeing 787 Dreamliners. In one case a battery caught fire, and in another a battery emitted smoke; both batteries did not catch fire.

A version of this article appears in print on February 16, 2013, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: To Avoid Delay, Airbus Drops Lithium-Ion Batteries. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe